


Lower Thy Sword, My Love

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, FE Rarepair Week 2018, PTSD symptoms, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, post-canon fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 11:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: Emmeryn’s body is weaker now, from the dark magic that brought her back from death; and when she is troubled or tired, her holy brand sends shooting pains through her skull. Emmeryn has decided that curses, however kindly intended to keep one alive, have a lot to answer for.





	1. Chapter 1

With a candle lit and the lanterns on the eves softly aglow, Emmeryn opens the slip of paper to find her own figure, drawn with her arm raised to the sky, a tome in one hand. It isn't anything like the portraits of kings on the walls of Ylisse, but the thickness of the brush line adds weight to the forward motion. She can't decide if it is rough or elegant, but it’s a treasure all the same.  
She’s in Valm for many reasons, most of all to stop herself from bothering Chrom now that her brother has taken rule of Ylisse, but for now she stays safe in Chon’sin’s castle, under the watchful eye of Queen Say’ri and her guards. Emmeryn is scheduled to meet the Voice in a few months after her spring brummation is over, and in the slow, patient time she has to wait, she’s settled into a fond friendship.

Say’ri, though now Queen, is something of a maverick among the lords that rule Valm. Barely in line for succession and given over thoroughly to her devotions to her Lady and her kingdom’s martial history, her skills cover much of martial arts and sport, and little of the intricacies of politic. Emmeryn, who cut her teeth on the same, finds it endearing, in a way she can’t explain for fear that she’ll insult her. 

Instead, Emmeryn offers her organizational skills still left over from her time as the Exalt. Her hardworking habits never died during her convalescence, and being away from the familiar halls of Ylisse eases the sadness in her heart. It helps, when she’s reminded of loves that will never come back. 

Chon'sin's fighting forces are decimated like any other recovering country, but Say'ri's carefully written notes open up a wealth of opportunities for both their lands. Heirloom swords are being redesigned to fit new heirs; much of the guard is made of women who stayed behind to defend their own homes. The revered old is becoming the new and for once since her retirement, Emmeryn feels a frisson of excitement. 

The new day that has followed many other days is like any other. The queen and her ambassador walk the path through the garden together to find Say’ri’s study, entering the door and moving across the floorboards set to creak with every step, announcing the passage of any quiet foot. Emmeryn finds new detail every day as the household acclimatizes to her presence. 

Emmeryn likes the relative anonymity of Chon’sin. It has prophets it looks to already, and the presence of a holy woman holds little novelty to people who aren’t already pilgrims. Emmeryn has taken her time relaxing, happy to meet people who don’t slide away from the presence of an exalt in the flesh or gaze at her like she’s to be pitied for her recovery from a broken crown. 

Emmeryn’s body is weaker now, from the dark magic that brought her back from death, and when she is troubled or tired, her holy brand sends shooting pains through her skull. Emmeryn has decided that curses, however kindly intended to keep one alive, have a lot to answer for. 

Children who were orphaned during Chon’sin’s battles cluster in palace rooms with their new guardians, watching the Queen’s guest and her regal escort pass through the corridors and open doors. More than once, Emmeryn has noticed them talking among themselves after they’ve seen their fill of her. Even though she’s their topic of conversation, she can’t mind it. Their chatter isn’t translated by her host or their guards; a babble of barely-understood baby talk that is nothing like the smooth, archaic sounds of a different language Say’ri speaks when talking to her. 

Sweet though it is for Say’ri to change for her, Emmeryn learned the languages of Valm as a child in her lessons. When she was revived, her words were carefully found again, piece by piece, and being in the country the language lived in had started to pull together threads of things long gone. 

Memories she’d thought forgotten sprang to mind constantly, even though they were made an age ago. Although Emmeryn needs practise - frustratingly, nobody wants to speak to her who can’t already use Ylissean - she feels like she can grasp pieces of things she lost.

Emmeryn makes a mental note to ask the queen for a quiet chat when the time is right. Such things require patience, which is something that can be helped, but not taught. By Emmeryn’s experience, it can only be grown. Sometimes, Emmeryn wonders – would Say’ri sound the same, speaking her own tongue to her? 

The day passes easily, a filtered stack of notes and requests, abandoned in the afternoon for a late lunch. Say’ri points the construction on the horizon, proud and excited. Emmeryn is quiet, but the enthusiasm has her fond. Then the day ends and Emmeryn retires, peaceful. Her brand had begun to ache through the day, starting after lunch, but usually she forewent the rest, enduring until dinner to manage through it. Eventually either the pain will stop returning or she’ll have to take a sabbatical from the duties she’s taken up, but for now, she can relax. It is a problem for a different day.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day brings a pile of paperwork, the fro and to of stamps, signatures and long essays asking for funds from a mostly empty coffer. Emmeryn notes the shift from pleasant political visit into the usual grind of writing and deciding things that she’d experience back home. Somebody - presumably Say’ri’s chief court official - has decided that the time for long conversations over dinner is over, and the volume of work that the Queen has to handle on her own has gone from a trickle to a torrent. 

Emmeryn is introduced to maps, charts, and other such things that she’d see on a tactician’s table. Things she knows well, despite every difference that a different country may bring forward. The question that arises – though unvoiced – is why Say’ri can’t find anybody from her own home to aid her, but from their friendship she’d learned that the royal family of Chon’sin was slow to trust. 

“For later,” Say’ri says, casually; and another piece of paper twice-folded makes its way across the table with the letters for review. She draws as much as she writes, and slides things regularly across the table to break up the monotony. Although such interruptions make their work take three times as long, every time something appears to please Emmeryn, an echo of that smile tips on Say'ri's own face. 

Emmeryn puts it away, sliding her new gift between the papers of a file she keeps for her own reference. She takes moments to make it lay flat beneath the pages, wondering what it might be. Yesterday was something drawn, though she’s been given poems and little stories before – underneath inked with the translation in carefully scribed letters. Each gift comes with the caveat that Emmeryn must not hold onto it if it bores or displeases her. Chon'sin conducts many things at arm's length. 

"Do you need to stretch your limbs?" Say'ri asks with a still-bowed head, her focus upon the wax and stamp she is dutifully melting and quietly rolling. The symbol sits neatly within the dip, as it was marked on the back of her coat during the war for Valm's release.  
“Not that I believe that you are in any way troubled, but we have been seated a long time, and I think I may need the space to clear my head."  
Emmeryn hums in reply, still working on her own figures despite the many distractions that Say'ri manages to bring along with her. It is kind of Say’ri not to mention her frailties. 

"I wouldn't mind," Emmeryn says mildly. She's fielded a lot of scraps of paper today – Say'ri draws short, impatient doodles, makes furious amounts of notes in a scratchy hand, and marks her signature with such energy that somehow, despite their difference in looks, she’s reminded of Chrom’s childhood inability to sit down. 

"To the garden, then," Say'ri says. She rises easily, folding up from the knees and straightening her back, waiting for Emmeryn to make her own way upright, which takes a lot longer. She waves away the guard and escorts Emmeryn down the halls herself, slowing her stride to match. It is merely friendship, Emmeryn justifies, that makes her take Say’ri’s arm by the elbow and hold it on the way. 

Along the way from their study room and through the place where they’ll eat their evening meal, Say’ri points out the things Emmeryn gazed at and recounts the names of the people in the illustrations; the heroes, the spirits, the weapons with names of their own all tied together deep and rich and full. She mentions parts of stories Emmeryn has never heard and then sighs like she wants to tell it all before she slinks on slowly, a full stride backwards before she turns to keep in step.


	3. Chapter 3

The garden is still recovering, as are all things, but the stone pathway underfoot is dipped with footsteps centuries old. They lead in pleasing coils to fragrant flowers and places to sit, decorative wooden arches awaiting their leafy fronds and curls. 

The clearing of a guard's throat is delicate in the shadow of a tree as they pass it. Emmeryn at once freezes somewhere in her chest, caught between hope for moments spent away from the castle together in private, and the grim thought of practicality. But Say'ri finds a seat for them both and lights the lantern, letting the circle of light be their barrier. 

"’I apologize for our long day," Say'ri says, to make conversation at last. Her hands fidget, break apart, rest upon her knees and hold there stiffly. She is usually better at appearing calm than this. Something else is at work, and Emmeryn does not know the cause. 

"Not at all," Emmeryn replies. The night air is cold enough to have their breath ghost the air, but she won’t complain. It is still so rare to have time with company and nothing else. She suspects that she’s not the only one who misses it. 

Say'ri's hand reaches for Emmeryn's, warm and comfortable as her fingers curl deliberately around one hand in a loose grip. Say'ri lifts it to her mouth, blows warmly over her chilled fingertips. It is as Emmeryn suspected, but she can’t at all bring herself to mind it. 

Say’ri reaches down by her own ankle and snaps off the head of a flower, offering up the pale night bloom. Emmeryn nods and Say’ri moves with careful slowness to fix it in her hair, up above one ear. She smiles, and Emmeryn gives her one in return. It isn’t just to be polite. Their hands join again, warm fingers over sleeves made out of silk. 

The pair of them shouldn't particularly be interacting like this; two maiden queens - one risen and one fallen - both yet to make a proper match. But Say'ri's dark eyes do not glance demurely away, and Emmeryn can do little else but wait in her company for the next action, both a woman brave and yet not enough to be bold in the halo of their shared light. She squeezes Say'ri's hand in return, silently asking for her to take another step. It feels too bright to move. 

"Would you like to see this place again in daylight?" Say'ri asks, uncurling Emmeryn’s hand from the back of her own and putting a folded square of paper into the dip of Emmeryn's palm, "I am sure it will be just as beautiful then." 

Emmeryn wants to protest, that she is here only as an aide and an official from a distant place, not a guest to be charmed with flowers and nightly walks, but Say'ri folds her hand atop Emmeryn’s to keep the paper there, and speaks again before she does. The half-hearted refusal dies in her throat.

“You may leave,” Say'ri says, turning her head and addressing the darkness, “I am armed.”   
The thought that Say'ri still carries weapons even at rest, even after a long day of nothing but paperwork, makes Emmeryn feel slightly sick. Guards are made to guard, and knowing she didn’t hear the steps the guard took along the path make the seat they’re in a liability, a target to be aimed at. Only a poise borne of years of practise keeps her still and calm as her chest draws cold and breathless. 

“Armed?” she inquires softly.  
Say'ri slips a hand to her belt, pulling out a short wooden sheath, and with her thumb reveals from it little more than a slightly curved dagger, slim and sharp after the manner of many weapons from Chon'sin. Emmeryn’s hands break from Say’ri’s touch the moment she sees it, barely realizing the soft sound of it fitting back away. 

“It was my mother's,” Say'ri says softly, replacing her hand over Emmeryn’s fingers, “When the castle was overrun I took what I could. I know your displeasure... It is no holy sword that requires that I keep it.” 

Perhaps one day, the sting will feel less, but for now it feels like poison. Emmeryn pulls out of Say’ri’s gentle grip, and she stands abruptly.   
“No,” she says, meaning to append something soft to the end of it. “No, please. I can’t.”  
“Let me escort you-”  
“I can find my own way.”  
Emmeryn bites down on her own cheek as she starts walking, after a while hearing the footfalls of somebody behind her.   
“Please, let me walk alone-”  
“Ambassador Emmeryn, I have been ordered to escort you.”  
The voice is higher than that of the queen, and so Emmeryn slows.   
“Thank you,” she manages thinly. Her brand is beginning to throb.


	4. Chapter 4

The second time their hands touch, it is when they are alone again. Alone as much as they can be - there are guards outside the doors, their ears sharp and listening through every wall. Emmeryn reaches for a piece of paper, and Say'ri reaches too.   
Emmeryn startles with a flutter of breath, but Say'ri holds in place, her hand brave enough to reach into Emmeryn's retreat, turning upside down smoothly for a second as if to ask for it to be clasped before the moment breaks.   
It hasn’t been long enough for Emmeryn to forget. 

She smiles, the gesture feeling like a lie, and says she’s fine to continue, but Emmeryn’s forehead has burned intermittently since the morning. She can’t tell if her pain comes from feeling unsafe or from the way she feels she was lied to. Either way, it is stress she didn’t want to deal with. It builds on the work yet to be done.

Without comment, Say’ri clears her throat to brush the matter aside and takes the paper with her, tucks it in the space in front of her knees and busies herself with marking it. Emmeryn swallows down the nerves in her throat and allows herself a little laugh, tipping her head to glance over the marks she herself has made.   
After a short break to eat, Say'ri pushes a folded piece of paper across the table.   
“For later,” she says, “Do not keep it if it displeases you.”  
It is an old refrain by now, but Emmeryn wonders how many of these small flirts and favours she wants to discard. They’re kind and cheap little treasures, certainly - but until a day ago she had found herself charmed. In a way, perhaps it is because she regrets how easy and safe she felt that she now considers cutting it all off. 

The dagger lays on the table between them. Previously, Emmeryn had thought it was some kind of container for writing equipment – she'd seen the other one out on the desk, and split it open to take out the dipping pens it contained. The dagger sits so innocuously and so insidious inside pale wood; a weapon cradled in unassuming blankness.

For a while, it’s easy to forget if she truly concentrates, but it doesn’t last long enough. Emmeryn stares down the single seam that Say'ri pops without thinking to use the blade inside. She sharpens the pen and judges the point, using it as a tool, and nothing more.   
“Would it bother you to get ink on it?” Emmeryn asks, without even thinking.  
With a little smile, Say’ri rotates the sheath around on the table with a fingertip, showing the old ink-splash that flecks irregularly down the side.   
“A pen-blade? It is already marked. Try not to worry so.”   
“But it was your mother’s?”  
“Aye,” Say’ri confirms, finally settling the blade back in place, “And it stayed on her writing-desk until I had cause to leave with it.”  
Emmeryn doesn’t know what to think, but Say’ri reacts as though she’s pulled a face, so she must have done something. Perhaps they finally know each other well enough to tell. It’s too romantic a thought for Emmeryn’s taste. 

“Perhaps such a small thing is not the defense you hoped to have when I sent my guard away... But I wished only to spend a moment alone with you.” 

“Yes,” Emmeryn says, unsure of how precisely to articulate the problem, “Ah- Yes,” she repeats, “Naturally.”  
Emmeryn does her best to sweep the event under the carpet. If they don’t get enough done today, they’ll have this and more to do tomorrow. Her brand begins to burn again, and she thinks of retiring for the night. Only pity makes her stay. 

“You’ll have to be faster, Lady Say’ri,” she says, forcing jovality through her teeth, “Or you’ll have troubles when I’m gone.”

The look on Say’ri’s face is picture enough to explain that she hadn’t considered the moment when Emmeryn would leave again. But after a moment she wipes the expression clear, furrowing her brow to focus sternly. For a woman so full of elegance and poise, her emotions write themselves clearly upon her face.


End file.
